The fact-checking GOP claims that people on the terrorism watch list are “running” to the border

The fact-checking GOP claims that people on the terrorism watch list are “running” to the border

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Among the most notable allegations are comments by Republican Party leader Kevin McCarthy, who said that people on the terrorism watch list were now trying to enter the United States from the southern border.

“They are now meeting people from Yemen, Iran, Turkey. People on the terror watch list that they are capturing. And they are running at once,” McCarthy told Fox News. He suggested during a news conference that individuals recently detained on the terrorism watch list also came from Sri Lanka and China.

Representative John Katko, who was also part of the Republican cohort visiting the border, echoed McCarthy’s statement on Fox News Tuesday morning, saying the U.S. Border Patrol told him they found migrants on the terrorism watch list.

“I was amazed,” said Katko. “And I never heard that before.”

Facts first: There is no evidence of a sudden rush of individuals on the terrorism watch list appearing on the southern border. The information available is vague and leaves many questions unanswered. That said, it is totally false to suggest that a small number of individuals on the terrorism watch list coming to the southern border are a new phenomenon. In addition, it is important to note that being on the FBI’s terrorism watch list does not mean that someone is a terrorist or has proven links to terrorists.

Here’s what we know:

On Tuesday, CNN’s requests to McCarthy’s office for evidence to support his allegations remained unverified for hours. Then, at around 2:30 pm, Axios reported that, according to an unnamed Congressional aide, CBP had confirmed to Congress on Tuesday that “four people arrested on the southern border since October 1 correspond to names in the Database FBI Terrorist Screening. ”

After the Axios report was published, a representative from McCarthy’s office pointed to him in response to CNN’s request for comment. According to the report, one of the individuals was from Serbia and the other three were from Yemen.

On Tuesday night, in response to the Axios report, Arizona Democrat Ruben Gallego contested the substance of these statements in an interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett, saying: “There is no correlation between what I am reading with the that Mr. McCarthy and others are talking about. ”

“In fact, I just received a briefing about 90 minutes ago on this subject and nothing I heard in that briefing corresponds to that information,” Gallego told CNN.

When Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was asked about the report during a congressional hearing on Wednesday, Mayorkas said that individuals on the list of terrorists found on the southern border “are not a new phenomenon” and have been occurring for years.

The Axios report does not clarify when these four individuals were arrested, but says that the arrests occurred sometime during the five and a half months between October and March 16. Fox News reported on Tuesday that one of the individuals “was found on January 28.” It is also unclear whether the individuals were actually on the list or whether their names merely corresponded to those among the hundreds of thousands kept in the database. And it is currently unknown whether the four people are still in custody or have been released.

After repeated requests to clarify McCarthy’s claim, Customs and Border Protection provided CNN with a statement Tuesday night, which noted that “meetings of known and suspected terrorists at our borders are very unusual.”

The watch list

In a FAQ, the FBI says that anyone who suspects they are “involved in terrorist activities” may be on the terrorism watch list. A DHS official told CNN “it should not be concluded immediately” why someone is on the watch list.
Most of the individuals flagged by the watch list try to enter the United States on airplanes. Finding a very small number on the border that is on the terrorist watch list is not unique to the Biden government.
Individuals on the terrorism watch list were found on the southern U.S. border by federal agents during President Donald Trump’s term. In addition, the number of such individuals found at the border in a given year is extremely small and is a very small percentage of the total number of known or suspected terrorists who attempt to enter or travel to the United States each year.
In January 2019, CNN reported that about a dozen non-US citizens who were on the terrorism watch list were found on the southern border of the U.S. by federal officials from October 2017 to October 2018, according to a US official. government familiar with CBP data.

Alex Nowrasteh, director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, told CNN that in most years the number of undocumented migrants on the terror watch list found on the southern border “is in the few digits.”

“The numbers are so small that it is difficult to say anything statistically significant about them,” said Nowrasteh, noting further that no American “was killed by an illegal immigrant in a terrorist attack on American soil – it did not. ”

Previous claims

Republican allegations of terrorists crossing the southern border of the United States are not new.

In the midst of a wave of migration in January 2019, Trump said, “We have terrorists coming over the southern border because they think it is probably the easiest place to go. They go straight and turn left.”

But the allegations made by the then president of terrorists passing through Mexico were contradicted by his own State Department.

A report by the State Department’s Office of Counterterrorism concluded that “(i) in 2019, there was no reliable evidence indicating that international terrorist groups established bases in Mexico, worked directly with Mexican drug cartels or sent agents across Mexico to the States United”.

CNN’s Geneva Sands contributed to this article.

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